ITV says turnaround 'on track'

Published on Thursday 15 May 2008 21:38

ITV said yesterday that its turnaround plan was on track as it looked set to outperform the overall UK advertising market for the first time in eight years.

The broadcaster said its net ad revenues were up 2 per cent in the first three months of this year.

And it predicted this key measure for the broadcasting industry would be flat for the company's first half, better than a 1 per cent dip for the total market.

ITV said its viewing share across its family of channels, which includes the flagship ITV1, was up 1.6 percentage points at 23.4 per cent.

Executive chairman Michael Grade, who joined the broadcaster at the end of 2006, said: "ITV has made further progress in 2008 and the turnaround plan, outlined in September 2007, remains on track.

"The forecast for the first half shows us outperforming the UK television advertising market – the first time this has happened since 2000."

ITV's total group revenues for the first quarter were up 3 per cent to 492 million. Broadcasting revenues suffered a 2 per cent dip to 409m for the period, largely as a result of suspended text and red button voting after a spate of phone-in scandals relating to programmes such as Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Soapstar Superstar.

Last week ITV was fined of 5.67m by Ofcom for "serious editorial issues" that saw swathes of viewer votes ignored.

The big driver in ITV's revenues growth was global content sales, up 41 per cent to 58m during the quarter.

Deals include a US version of reality-TV cooking show Hell's Kitchen starring Marco Pierre White, and Dancing On Ice, which has been sold on to countries including Australia, Belgium and Slovakia.

Broker Investec Securities said it was ITV cutting earnings forecasts for this year by 5 per cent.